> The planet’s temperature spiked on Tuesday to its hottest day in decades and likely centuries,
It's not talking about "greenhouse Earth". Anyways, for immediate concerns we only need to look at the Meghalayan age.
That day might be the candidate for the first day earth existed given it gained quite a bit of mass. (Given the theory the earth-moon system was created by the collision of a couple of planetary bodies)
The instrumental temperature record is typically considered to start in 1850 so I am not sure what do you mean by "this data". But 100 or 200 hardly matters.
What I meant is while we don't have day-to-day precise data, we don't quite need it because the global temperature doesn't change that much and we do have some ideas -- paleoclimatologists are crafty -- and if the surface would have heated like now that would have had long term effects and we haven't seen any.
So yes, we can, with a reasonable confidence say it has not been this hot for centuries.